§ 143-716. Definitions.
§ 143‑716. Definitions.
The following definitions apply in this Article:
(1) Commission. The Tobacco Trust Fund Commission.
(2) Compensatory programs. Programs developed by theCommission to identify, locate, compensate, and indemnify tobacco producers,allotment holders, and persons engaged in tobacco‑related businesses whohave suffered actual economic losses in this State due to lost quota, thedecline in value of tobacco‑related personal property assets, anddeclining market conditions resulting from the Master Settlement Agreement ordeclines in the tobacco‑related segment of the State's economy.
(3) Fund. The Tobacco Trust Fund.
(4) Master Settlement Agreement. The settlement agreementbetween certain tobacco manufacturers and the states, as incorporated in theconsent decree entered in the action of State of North Carolina v. PhilipMorris, Incorporated, et al., 98 CVS 14377, in the General Court of Justice,Superior Court Division, Wake County, North Carolina.
(5) National Tobacco Grower Settlement Trust. The trustestablished by tobacco companies to provide payments to tobacco growers andallotment holders in 14 states for the purposes of ameliorating potentialadverse economic consequences of likely reduction in demand, sales, and pricesfor tobacco as an agricultural product as a result of the Master SettlementAgreement.
(6) Qualified agricultural programs. Programs developed by theCommission to support and foster the vitality and solvency of the tobacco‑relatedsegment of the State's agricultural economy, particularly the segment adverselyaffected by the Master Settlement Agreement, with the objective of alleviatingand avoiding unemployment, preserving, and increasing local tax bases, andencouraging the economic stability of participants in the State's agriculturaleconomy. Examples of qualified agricultural programs include programs tofinance the modernization of farming equipment, programs to finance theconversion of existing equipment to conform to environmental and other regulatoryrequirements, and programs to finance the conversion or replacement ofequipment in order to cultivate crops that are more profitable than arecurrently being cultivated.
(7) Tobacco product component business. An individual,partnership, limited liability company, corporation, or other commercial entitythat engages in the manufacture of component products for use in themanufacture of tobacco products.
(8) Tobacco‑related business. An individual,partnership, limited liability company, corporation, or other commercial entitythat provides products or services used directly in (i) the production oftobacco, or (ii) support of the business of the production or sale of tobacco.The term does not include the manufacturing of tobacco products or the sale oftobacco products at wholesale or retail.
(9) Tobacco‑related employment. Employment in a tobacco‑relatedbusiness, or in the manufacturing of tobacco products or the component productsused in the manufacture of tobacco products. The term does not include personsemployed in the sale of tobacco products at wholesale or retail. (2000‑147, s. 3.)